


Release

by amelia



Series: Release [1]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Firefly, Torchwood
Genre: Asexual Character, Dancing, F/M, M/M, Oral Sex, Sexual Frustration, Tenth Doctor Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-11 10:13:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/797226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amelia/pseuds/amelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor slept with him, travelled with him, and they saved each other’s lives. So why did this one basic instinct in Jack’s biology bother him so much?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The pain in Jack’s side was the first to wake up, an aching bruise from a fight the day before. He’d been slammed against a brick wall, and he’d turned around and slammed the creature back. He wished he’d had his Webley but the Doctor wasn’t one for guns. 

His little jack was already awake, still hard from some forgotten wet dream. Jack was aware of blankets draped over him and the Doctor beside him. Throbbing, he pressed against the Doctor’s thigh. Their heat mingled. They slept together these days--the Doctor needed intimacy even if he didn’t want the other kinds of touch that Jack craved. 

It had been fine for months, but now—Jack moved his fingers over the Doctor’s lanky thigh, across his tight stomach, and up the firm ribcage to feel his double hearts thumping. His lips grazed the Doctor’s shoulder. 

The Doctor didn’t protest. Jack kept touching, curving his hands over the arch of the Doctor’s shoulders and bicep, the peak of his hip, the wiry sweep of his thigh. The Doctor sighed. His own sex was vestigial as ever, mocking little jack.

Jack propped himself up on an elbow, hovering over the lanky body beside him to kiss the Doctor’s cheek, then his neck, and down across his collarbone. He’d never dared before. He slid his hands down the Doctor’s stomach, but the Doctor shifted, pushing him away. 

“Don’t start. You know better.”

Jack took a shuddering breath and pushed himself off the bed, shucking off the covers in a heap over the sleepy Doctor. He walked to the bathroom and shut the door, and looked at himself in the mirror—still the same muscled, handsome guy as ever, if a bit puffy around the eyes. He stroked himself, rubbing his thumb over the swollen head of his jack. 

Usually it only took a few minutes. It was his morning habit. If the Doctor noticed, he never mentioned it. But just now, a strange, deep hurt settled in his gut. The Doctor slept with him, travelled with him, and they saved each other’s lives. So why did this one basic instinct in Jack’s biology bother him so much? 

Shivers of pleasure were running down Jack’s legs and he let the unsettling thoughts go. He braced himself against the counter. He tried to remember others touching him—Ianto’s blue eyes and round, wet mouth. His firm fingers, squeezing Jack’s buttocks, and the hot desire flushing his cheeks.

When Jack stepped back into the bedroom, the Doctor was gone.

\--

As they ran through a corridor on Silvarian Seventeen, the Great Empire, Jack wanted nothing more than to keep running and adventuring. 

He grabbed the Doctor’s hand as they ran and there was no complaint. “Move, move, move!” he called, pushing the Doctor in front of him to shield him from the Silvans chasing them. Any moment they were going to shoot, and Jack was the only one who would recover. 

Out here, the Doctor let Jack touch him. It was nothing much, just a brush of the fingers when they worked together to disarm that bomb. After that, there was a quick embrace when they succeeded, and the Doctor’s breath of relief on his cheek. If Jack’s hand rested on the Doctor’s hip as they looked through the blueprints on how to get out of the building, well, it was only because they were both distracted. 

They’d been lucky that Silva girl had helped guide Jack and the Doctor through the building. She was risking her life to save those four Kirwells who were taken captive, but the way she kept watching Jack, he knew his pheremones still worked their 51st century magic. 

The Doctor said nothing about her, not even when Jack left him to retrieve theprisoners alone, while Jack brought their Silva guide to safety. She knew her own way perfectly well, but what they needed was time alone, together. Without even talking it through, she led Jack to a hidden alcove where they could satisfy themselves against each other. 

There was a thrill to the conquest. He relished the urgency of it, hiding from the Doctor. There were her eager hands, and her mouth wet on his shoulder and his neck. They only took off the clothes necessary and skipped the preliminaries. Her flesh was cool and scaley, wet inside. She shuddered and hissed against him, and he muffled his own noises, pressing into her until the pleasure finally erupted into his limbs. The release made his muscles ache with exhaustion. 

Just as they parted, fixed themselves, and Jack helped her escape through a hatch in the corridor, the Doctor returned with the four prisoners. He took one look at Jack, and his eyes were angry and scornful—and something else like betrayal shone through them. Probably he could smell the residue of sex and see it in the flush in Jack’s cheeks. 

The bliss of it never lasted long. The Doctor always knew, and somehow that diminished it. Jack always slept facing away after those encounters, his dreams erotic but haunted. So he wanted nothing more than to stay out there, to keep adventuring and running. He wanted to keep finding small ways to be close to the Doctor, and other ways to find release. 

Inside the Tardis again, the Doctor kept his distance and flinched from Jack as if expecting an electric shock. They bickered as they adjusted the Tardis controls that had dropped them in that mess in the first place. Jack argued they should patch the tempero-regulator circuitry into the stabilizer field, to make them land more reliably in the right time frame. They debated which tool was more effective for connecting the wires: Jack’s 31st century soldering iron, or the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. 

The sonic took about twice as long to make the connection and when Jack realized he was further along, he turned to the Doctor. “Why not use a real soldering gun?” 

“Psh—I don’t need one of those,” the Doctor said. “I built this screwdriver myself, you know. Sure, I got the tech from Villengard, but every part since has been rebuilt and reprogrammed with, well, quite a bit of cleverness on my part.” 

“Great,” Jack shrugged, “You hacked it out of odds and ends, but there’s no substitute for having the right tool for the job.”

With a huff, the Doctor uncurled himself from under the console. “You want to finish this on your own then? If your tool’s so superior?” 

“Let’s just get this done.” Jack colored and looked away. 

“Good then.” 

Jack wanted his fingers sliding over the tight bands of muscle on the Doctor’s stomach, not slipping among the insulated colored wires. He wanted to press his mouth against that pouty lower lip the Doctor stuck out when he was concentrating. His little jack was standing up, while the only stripping that was happening was on the insulated casing of the wires, and the only thing melting under his fingers was solder. 

A few minutes longer, and they got the job done the fast, unsatisfying way. “That should do it for now,” said the Doctor as he pushed the metal panels back over the tangle of wires. 

“We’ll need to finish this properly some time,” Jack warned as he stood and stretched.

“Not now—come on. We need a break,” The Doctor led the way down the corridor, and Jack followed until they arrived in the library. 

An hour or more later, Jack was still staring at the words in a book, curled in a leather chair. He’d never been one for reading but the Doctor was absorbed in something. Jack was waiting for him to uncurl his lanky limbs and say, “Come on, Jack. It’s time.” They’d crawl under covers together and fall asleep, and tomorrow they could start over.

The book was still in Jack’s lap when he woke up some time later, and the Doctor’s seat was vacant, his text alone on the table beside it. With a sigh, Jack rose and stretched, and he padded off to bed alone. When he crawled under the covers, he was almost grateful the Doctor wasn’t with him. This way, he didn’t have to hide. He could bury his face in the pillow, stroke himself, and make as much noise as he wanted. He could come, moaning and writhing, comfortable in his own body.

\---

It was the smell of eggs that woke him up the next morning. 

He found himself sprawled across the bed, face buried in a pillow and hands against the sheets. The ache in his side was less, and his jack was half-hard against the mattress. He could still feel the residue of his own ejaculate, dried and flaky against his hip, from the night before. 

It reminded him of long-gone days sleeping with Ianto in his little cot under the hub, and their hours of making love. He would never have called it that at the time. He’d been too proud to get a bed large enough for them both. They were just dabbling—even when Ianto had cooked him breakfasts before dawn in the Hub’s kitchen.

There was a clatter in the corridor. Jack pushed himself up and sat, bemused at the smell of eggs. 

“Morning!” The Doctor greeted him, setting down a platter. He’d made scrambled eggs and toast. With slices of banana. And tea. There was a look of uncertainty in his eyes, gone in a flash as he babbled about cooking and his love of bananas and the book he was reading on applied temporal geometry. 

Jack let the Doctor set a plate in front of him, and started to eat as he was expected to. The Doctor was watching him, and talking, his fingers flying around and drawing shapes in the air. Jack wanted to shove the platters away, drag the Doctor into bed beside him, and tell him eggs could never be a substitute. 

But the Doctor was trying in his own way to make things right, and he’d even managed to cook a good breakfast.


	2. Chapter 2

Then there were days when everything was glorious and ridiculous. 

They stopped for New-Italian cuisine on Hambartaglia and found themselves faced with Valdesian intruders. Before the Valdesians fled the solar system, they cackled evilly and threatened the entire planet of five-headed residents. As the grinding noise of the space ship vanished, the Doctor scanned the buildings around them and set off to discover what exact kind of doom the Valdesian’s evil laughter might have foretold. 

Jack followed the Doctor and his screwdriver down winding corridors into the belly of a building. Hidden deep in an abandoned store-room, they found the source of the electrical anomalies in the form of a pulsing pink orb. Long wires sprung from the goo and snaked out along the tiles, under the edges of the walls. 

“Oh, that’s hideous,” Jack complimented the thing. “Like rotting brain matter.”

The Doctor scanned the whole ensemble, running the screwdriver up and down along the walls. “These wires lead beyond the edge of the building, outside the city—right down to the core of the planet!” 

His face turned horrified, and he slouched over the mush and sunk his fingers into it. Jack watched as his face turned paler, then greenish, and he looked like his stomach might come up. 

“If I knew we had brain surgery scheduled, I'd have brought a scalpel," Jack said. "What’s it doing?”

“Nothing good.” Sparks flared around the Doctor’s fingers and his face fell strangely blank. Concerned, Jack squatted next to him and reached out to shake his shoulder, but hesitated. If the thing was wired in and sending out rogue electrical signals, he might be in for a bracing shock or worse, electrocution.

A moment later the Doctor’s eyes flickered open. He leaned forward, pressing his forward on Jack’s. “You too. Need all the strength we can get.”

Jack leaned in, grimacing, and sunk his fingers in the pink glop beside them. At least, he wasn’t flaring with electric shock. But he found his mind suddenly whirling and bonded with the Doctor’s thoughts—the thing was pulsing like a brain, with synapses creating an electrical field around them. 

It was slowly sucking in more and more of the matter around it. Eventually it would engulf the building, erasing the whole structure from time. The whole thing would implode in on them and then—what? They’d be stuck in a black hole or a time loop. Jack shuddered to think of having to resurrect only to be dissolved again into the singularity, while the Doctor burned, trying to regenerate.

“So how do we stop it?” The Doctor was thinking. But his thoughts were clogged by the spinning field around them, caused by the brain bomb. Jack saw his mental patterns swirl and stick, and watched his face look sicker by the second.

“Get out,” Jack warned him, projecting the command as much as he could through their minds, “Get out of there.” The Doctor twitched but didn’t answer. 

Jack lifted his own hands and separated the Doctor from the brain, gently pulling his fingers from the pink mass. It was dangerous, but so was leaving him there. The Doctor jumped with an electrical shock and gasped air into his lungs, his eyes red and his jaw twitching. A slow groan escaped him and he tilted.

Jack grabbed his shoulder, holding him upright. “Doctor. Talk to me.”

The Doctor ripped his hands from Jack’s and clutched at his temples, hunching over himself. “Like my mind in a blender. You’ve got to reverse it.” 

“You can talk. That’s good.” Jack pressed his own forehead on the Doctor’s again and pressed his hands around the Doctor’s. “Steady now. Better?”

“How do we stop time from twisting?” He growled, backed up, and jerked around. “Come on. Thinking thinky thoughts, Time Lord thoughts. How can we fix time? Repair it? Restore it? Rebuild it?” 

“Doctor,” Jack tried to get him grounded again. “The time field in this thing is spinning out—can we reverse it?” Rapidly, he sent visuals, all the ideas he could think of, through their telepathic link. The motion seemed to steady the Doctor.

“Right!” he cried, jumping up. “Right you are, Jack Harkness. If we only spin the opposite direction. Counter it. Neutralize it!”

Jack was surprised as the Doctor’s long fingers grasped his and whirled him to stand above the brain goo. “Let’s dance!” the Doctor called, and pulled him around.

And so they’d ended up with their hands linked, spinning around the bomb, their feet shuffling and kicking the field up around them. It tingled their knees. 

“Doctoooooor!” called Jack as they tilted, gaining speed. 

“Ha!” cried the Doctor. His face was wild. Jack grasped his hands, and kept their eyes locked, as the walls blurred around them. Finally sparks jumped from the brain blob beneath them, and with a series of fiery, smoking puffs, the electro-magnetic time field imploded on itself. 

They spun out, Jack colliding with a wall and the Doctor collapsing against a metal container at the side of the room. “Spinning!” called the Doctor, still giddy and dizzy from the effects of the mind warp. Then he giggled like a mad man. “Twirling around a Valdesian bomb! Reversing the fields! Ridiculous!”

Jack stared at the hole in the floor, and the plumes of smoke still floating around their heads. They were intact, and the building was perfectly solid around them. 

“Remind me to never become a surgeon,” Jack said, wobbling as he crossed the room to the Doctor. “That's just one more casualty on my operating table. Feeling better?”

“Oh yes! Inner ear’s a bit wiggly still.” He swayed, as Jack grabbed his arm. “But my feet are firmly planted—well,” the Doctor said, as they plopped down on the wall so Jack could catch his breath—“my backside’s firmly planted—oh yes, right here!” The Doctor leaned his head back on the wall and tilted it to look at Jack. “Good work, Captain!”

“So,” Jack teased, “the Doctor still remembers his moves.”

The Doctor chuckled, and twined his hands more firmly around Jack’s. “Captain, there are certain things that aren’t easily forgotten. Valdesian bombs are one of them. Dancing—that’s another.”

Jack leaned in to the Doctor’s warmth. With his lips tickling the Doctor’s ear, Jack murmured, “Any other moves you want to show me?”

“Hmm. Could take you some place later, for dancing,” the Doctor said, standing up. “But first, we’d better make sure those Valdese critters aren’t returning, once they realize we’ve blown up their little brain bomb.”

They’d separated hands now, and Jack kicked at the sooty-black boom mark in the tile. “Think they can trace us?”

“Don’t know. Wait. Do now. Hear that?” They both stood, staring at the ceiling, and Jack heard the grating and grinding sound above them—the Valdesian ship returning to the planet. 

“Good timing,” Jack said, “I’m due for a swift jog. Care to join me?”

“Ha! Don’t mind if I do,” said the Doctor, and then they were making a break for it—running at full speed down the corridors, and skidding around the curves, nearly pushing each other over in their hurry down the narrow halls.

They were shoulder to shoulder and the Doctor kept pushing faster, and Jack pushed himself harder, thrilled by the air pounding in his lungs. Their footsteps echoed and thundered around them. They finally made it back to ground level just as the Valdese were exiting their ship again, with their bright red uniforms and long guns.

They seemed to be preparing a ceremonial speech with ribbons and a podium and boy, were there a lot of guns, Jack noticed. He sprinted right past them and into the Tardis parked in the plaza. 

“Yeeehaw!” shouted the Doctor as they shut the Tardis behind them. “Haven’t run that fast in a good while!”

Jack leaned against the door and tried to catch his breath as his heart pounded a polka in his chest. “Thank God they love speeches!” he laughed. “Slows ‘em down!”

“Love your feet!” the Doctor proclaimed, having spun around the console and then returned to stand beside Jack. 

“My feet?”

“Time Lord, me. Not everyone can keep up!” He grinned in the Captain’s face and Jack could see he was sweating a bit himself. 

“Bet you a hyper-vodka I can outrun you,” Jack answered, smirking at the Doctor.

The Doctor just snorted, still leaning close enough that Jack could smell his breath, warm like tomato sauce and earthy like mushrooms. “Doubt that, Captain. You’re on.”

Jack pushed himself off the wall. “Hey, let’s find dinner. You smell like marinara, and I’m starving.”

“You don’t smell so bad yourself,” the Doctor teased him, and then he tugged Jack’s hand. They were running again, this time toward the kitchen. 

They stood a few minutes later with the cabinets open, staring at the bachelor-empty shelves containing one lonely box of pasta. 

“We could go out someplace,” the Doctor said, but Jack was already reaching for the noodles with a happy exclamation.

“This is easier, Doctor—it’s either I make pasta or—“ he grinned in the Doctor’s direction, “well, you smell like food—I could nibble on you right about now.”

Suddenly he felt bold again, somehow certain the Doctor would take his flirtatious repartee in stride. The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up, but then he winked, shook his head, and went rooting about in the the fridge for spaghetti sauce. “Let’s stick with the marinara, Captain. Had enough of my brain getting mashed about for one day.” 

With a flourish, he produced a jar and sonicked the lid, then set it down next to Jack on the counter. He leaned on the counter, watching Jack turn on the stove and bring water to a boil. Jack could feel the Doctor’s arm hair tingling against his own, and he tried to stay perfectly still, to avoid breaking the simple spell that had fallen over them. 

“That place I promised?” the Doctor said, eventually, filling the silence. “I’ll take you there after dinner.” His tone was uneasy.

“So this is dinner, is it?” Jack answered, watching as bubbles floated to the surface in the pot. “You know, I’d lost all my sense of time today. I thought it might be lunch or a midnight snack.”

“You’re not the only one—that’s what a Valdesian bomb does to a Time Lord.” The Doctor rubbed his neck, and then bounced on his toes. “Still—spinning, dancing, running—not a bad day?” 

“That was hardly dancing.” 

“Don’t worry,” the Doctor said, with a mysterious glint in his eye. “There’s more dancing to be had later, Captain.”

“Oh, really?” Jack was sceptical.

“Really, really. But not with me, Jack. You know.”

“Oh, I know.” Jack sighed. For now, he wasn’t worried about what the Doctor couldn’t do. He took the noodles the Doctor held out, and dropped them into the pan. As he watched them slowly sink into the water, he felt at home and content for the first time in a while.

And beside him the Doctor was muttering, “Toil, trouble, boil and…no. Oh, bother.” 

“Pasta burn and timelord mumble?” the Captain filled in, and the two heroes both raised eyebrows at one another, bubbling into ridiculous cackles of laughter.


	3. Chapter 3

Jack opened the door to a dark room filled with smoke, flashing lights, and writhing bodies. Music thrummed around him, and it took him a moment to realize it was a club, not an emergency evacuation. 

He leaned on the side of the Tardis door, looking out at the shadows of limbs flashing. “Doctor—really?”

“Dancing!” Beside him, the Doctor was trying to push Jack out the door into the fray. “Go on. Meet someone.” 

“Come get a drink with me, then.”

The Doctor started to shake his head, “No, Jack—just you.”

Jack hesitated. “How do I know you’re not just going to leave me here?” 

Crossing his arms, the Doctor leaned casually on the wall, his eyes flashing. “I wouldn’t.”

Jack looked in his friend’s dark eyes, but couldn’t find any reassurance. “Just wait for me at the bar. I won’t be long.” 

“That’s always the problem, isn’t it?” The Doctor looked at the door frame and tugged on his ear.

“What’s the problem now?” Jack sighed. 

“It’s always rushed.” The Doctor half-smiled, shrugging.

Jack just looked at him, wondering when their earlier good humour had faded and when the Doctor had started making judgments on Jack’s sex life. “You’re going to tell me what I need now?”

The Doctor dropped his calm little smile, cleared his throat and looked away. His voice dropped. “I wouldn’t dare presume.” 

“Then don’t.” Jack took a breath and shut the door on the world outside. 

“Jack. I can’t, you know.” The Doctor turned away, his eyes flickering to the time rotor patiently rising and falling. 

Jack leaned in toward the cheek that was facing him, wrapped his palm around the Doctor’s bony pin-striped shoulder, and murmured in his ear. “But you can.” 

The Doctor tensed, perfectly still, as Jack leaned into him. 

He looked confused, his face thin and utterly alien in the dim light. He still smelled surreally, domestically, of spaghetti sauce. “I could take you somewhere else,” he suggested, starting to babble. “Name a place, name a planet—time machine, you know,” he waved a hand. “And Relative Dimension--”

“Doctor,“ Jack reached to still his hand and stop him mid-sentence. “All I need is right here.” 

As the Doctor glanced at him, Jack dared to lean in, to press a kiss to his rough cheek. He didn’t pull away, and Jack tugged his soft earlobe and ran his lips along the Doctor’s long neck. The Doctor tensed, stone still, barely breathing. When Jack’s hand settled around his waist, he inhaled sharply.

“Jack!” His voice was louder than necessary, slightly panicked, and his face flushed.

Jack lifted his face. “You share my bed.” He watched the slight tremble of the Doctor’s lower lip. “I’m not even asking you to— _dance._ ” 

The Doctor, stung back into stillness, blinked back at him. Hesitating, Jack leaned in and kissed his mouth, settling his arms further around the Doctor’s hips. 

To his surprise the Doctor responded, wet lips searching against Jack’s own. Cool fingers stroked Jack’s neck, and he opened his eyes to find the Doctor was still watching him, one eyebrow raised. “You want me to get you off.” 

“Yes,” Jack swallowed, then shook his head. “No. Just stop running.” 

He took the Doctor’s hands and raised them to his temples. He felt the Doctor’s breath on his lips and their foreheads met, their noses brushing against each other in a way that made Jack want to laugh again. Between them, his little jack was shivering, waiting for a sign and wanting to come to life. 

The Doctor’s fingertips pressed against his forehead, and he waited until Jack reached out to his mind and drew him in. 

Jack tried to show, visually, what he couldn’t say in words. Every morning, how he wanted those long fingers running up his back, and the Doctor’s cool mouth against his skin. There shouldn’t be any shame in this longing he felt. 

The Doctor watched his thoughts without inserting any movement or noise. His cool thumbs brushed Jack’s cheeks. Jack rubbed his own thumb up the Doctor’s rough jawline, and down his neck. They stood, nose to nose, breathing each other. When the Doctor was always moving, always talking, and thinking and working, it was rare indeed to have a moment like this. Jack’s urge to kiss and claim him lessened. Now he just wanted to stay, hovering together, sharing each other’s warmth and breath. 

Then he felt something, like the Doctor stepping backwards in his mind. The fingers against his temples flickered and trembled. 

“You’re messing with my head,” Jack muttered. 

“You want to wind me up. And I need to let you down.”

“Don’t—“ Jack said, gripping his shoulders, feeling betrayed.

“Easy there, cowboy,” the Doctor said, like reassuring a small child. 

His amusement broke the spell, and Jack snorted. “Cowboy?” 

They collapsed a little against each other, relaxing, amused. It was then Jack realized the Doctor’s hands had moved under his coat, grasping his back and pressing him close. He leaned in, nuzzling his mouth to the Doctor’s neck and savoring the not-quite-human smell of him—his musky sweat and the scent of time travel and the life they shared. 

“Yes,” Jack mumbled against him. “Just this.”

Already, though, the Doctor was slowly pulling away, “Come on.” His hand settled in Jack’s, tugging him. “Buy me a drink. Then go find a proper lover. You deserve so much more.” 

His tone was so light, but his words hit Jack like a stone, making him feel short of breath. He let himself be pulled outside the Tardis, where the bass thrummed in his chest again.

A strobe was illuminating fog on the dance floor, and the Doctor’s smile was disappearing in the darkness. Jack stood still in his tracks, forcing the Doctor to turn back to him. 

“Thank you,” Jack’s voice felt thick, and he planted one more kiss on the Doctor’s lips. Then he pulled away, even though the Time Lord’s arms had started to snake around him again. 

Turning toward the bar, and blinking the stinging smoke out of his eyes, the lost time agent tried to remember how to be the unflappable, flirtatious Captain.


	4. Chapter 4

A Firefly class ship hummed over the city of Orion. Inside, Captain Malcolm Reynolds hurried down the steps toward the cargo bay. “Jayne!” he called. “Got the job lined up. Get ready.”

“On it, Cap.” Down in the loading dock, Jayne was already picking out weapons, eager for the part where he got to threaten people with them. 

A metal door clanged and Mal saw their mechanic heading up from the engine room. “Hey, Cap’n,” she paused to wipe greasy hands on her overalls. “How long we landing for?”

“Kaylee! Gonna need you to come with us tonight.” Mal strapped a gun to his leg and shrugged on a coat. 

“Really, Cap’n?” Kaylee said. 

“Really, really,” Mal smiled. 

Jayne, done strapping on his guns, was looking back and forth between them. “Why’re we bringin’ her?” With a little shrug, he added, “No offense. We’re just negotiatin’ some new crime, is all.”

“That’d be about the size of it,” Mal said. “Got to get somethin’ lined up, if we want to keep Serenity flyin’.” He sized up Kaylee. “She’ll do without you for the night, won’t she?”

“Sure, she will,” Kaylee said. “Serenity’s flying fine. Could always use some spare parts, in case something gets turned all sideways, though. Still, suppose Jayne’s right—I ain’t the best person to line up new clients.”

“You’ve been a little wound up, what with the doctor on board and his sideways-thinking sister. Thought it’d do ya good,” Mal said, with a tight smile. “’Sides, we got some engine parts to check out. Might be good to have a mechanic look ‘em over before we take the job.”

“Oh, shiny!” Kaylee said. “Can we meet the clients out someplace where they got dancing?”

With a eye-rolling, pursed-lemony look, Mal looked over at Jayne, who shrugged.

“Yeah, Cap’n,” he answered with a smirk, “The sight o’ gals bouncing around in skimpy outfits wouldn’t hurt business, would it?” 

“Right,” Mal answered. “Well, I’ll have Wash coordinate the drop-in point somewhere with dancin’ and skimpy clothing then.” 

“Aw, thanks, Cap’n,” Kaylee patted his shoulder.

Mal shook his head. “Aren’t Captains supposed to be mean and do all their dealings in shady, dive-bar kinda places with manly folk? If I ain’t careful, everyone’s gonna think I’ve gone all soft.”

“But we like our Cap’n a bit on the squishy side,” Kaylee grinned back. “Just so long’s you’re still hard and mean with the folks what need it.”

“Count on it," Mal patted his gun. "I’ll see you ready for landing in twenty.”

“We gotta wait longer?” Jayne complained. “I just got my guns all ready.” 

“Give the Captain time,” Kaylee told him. “I’m gonna get changed—if I can find something cleaner than these overalls.” She looked down at herself, then shrugged and walked off toward her bunk.

Jayne grunted and plunked himself down to wait, stroking the gun he was holding. He could hear Kaylee humming to herself as she left. “Huh. Dancing,” he said with one lip curled up in a smirk, and he was already picturing the scene. 

\--

The club was a retro Earth affair, full of crowded humans in outfits that reminded Jack Harkness of 20th century spandex, leather, and vinyl. Emulating the original earthlings, the dancers swung their hips and nodded to the beat like people on any planet who really had no idea how to dance. 

With the Doctor in tow, Jack angled up to the bar, looking for the right person to slink in next to. His eyes caught on a trio that weren’t quite dressed to the Earth-that-was theme. They were three men in greasy work pants and shirts, looking more in the mood for picking up underhanded business than a good-time grope. He couldn't have said what attracted him to them, except just maybe his heart wasn't quite ready for the thrill of skin and a careless beat.

He slid in next to the smallest boy at the bar, noting the sweet, clean-shaven face and curves underneath the oversized coat. It was a woman after all. “Well, hello. And who are you! You lot don’t look dressed for this party.”

“That’s cuz we ain’t,” one of the men spoke up, looking up at Jack before the girl could respond. 

“That’s just Mal,” the girl said, her voice high and clear. “He’s just gripey cuz I wanted to come dancin’. It ain’t often I get a chance to come out to a place like this, you know? All this smoke and music and pheremones.” She turned away from the bar and smiled out toward the crowd, and Jack watched her. 

“Pheremones?” He glanced up to the men behind her, who were watching without another word. They were looking protective of their girl—not the type to be interested in Jack himself. And that was a shame, because if he couldn’t have the Doctor, it might take a _ménage a quatre_ to get the Time Lord off his mind tonight.

“I’m Kaylee.” The girl smiled, all enthusiasm, and turned back to him, her eyes glancing off the Doctor and then settling on Jack again. 

“Captain Jack Harkness.” He smirked at her, leaning down on the bar to get closer to her height. Under her coat, he could see her slight frame and curves and he let his gaze linger just long enough so she'd notice him looking. 

“A Captain, huh?” Kaylee smiled, her eyes dropping a bit shyly. “Well, nice to meet you, Cap.”

“Pleasure’s mine,” Jack answered. He saw the way her hands on the bar were nervous, picking away at the graffiti’d carvings there. They were sensual hands, feeling along the grooves, and they were strong work hands, too, with grease under the fingertips and rough red patches where her knuckles were raw and scraped. Jack drew in a quick breath, and looked up to her eyes, about to say something, but her partner chimed in.

“Well, ain’t that just dandy—the girl’s found herself a new Captain,” Mal said. “Look here, Harkness, I’m Captain Malcolm Reynolds. Kaylee here’s my mechanic.”

Kaylee looked disappointed. “C’mon, Cap, no need to go ruining things. We’re just talkin’, is all.”

Jack just laughed. “I’m not looking for a mechanic. Might borrow her a while though, if she’s willing.” He tried to adopt the flavour of the local dialect to his talk and winked at Kaylee, liking how she ducked her head again with another blush of a smile. “I promise to return her by the end of the night, if that suits your liking.”

“Don’t look like you could fit another person on that craft,” Mal nodded out toward the Tardis, which was trying to fade into the corner on the other side of the club. “Much less the spinny things it takes to launch a ship into space. If you know what I mean.” 

Besides him, Jack felt the Doctor tense. This other Captain was on the lookout for something, and far too observant. The Tardis should be running under her perception filter, not visible for folk like Reynolds.

“Oh, don’t be shy!” Kaylee butted in, and her eyes darted back and forth between Jack and the Doctor. “She’s got the feel of a real neat ship, and we happened to see you step out earlier. Something’s different about her, right?”

“Well, she’s a bit unusual,” the Doctor answered, rubbing a hand across his neck. 

“My friend’s the Doctor,” Jack introduced him. 

Mal snorted. “Another Captain and another Doctor. Ain’t that grand. Well,” he stepped out from the bar, moving away from the girl, and clapped the Doctor on the back. “Just be good to our Kaylee. Our friend Jayne’s got a mighty itchy trigger finger.” 

“Afraid I’ll have to disappoint him, then,” Jack said.

"I reckon your Kaylee can make her own decisions," the Doctor said mildly to Mal, who nodded in approval.

Kaylee positively glowed. "I reckon I can."

Captain Reynolds was already looking at the other, silent man behind him. “Jayne and I got some business to take care of, don’t we, Jayne?” 

Jack smirked as the tall, rough-looking man behind Kaylee started with a sluggish “Huh? Yeah.” The man called Jayne looked like he could bench-press two of the Doctor, though he wasn't much for conversation. Probably loved a fight better than a fuck, but wouldn't turn down a blow job if Jack offered in the right way at the right time. But just now Jayne was pulling away, following Mal. He was clearly a hired gun, lacking a good bit of matter in the brain-pan, if his slow reaction time was anything to go by. 

“What business is that, then?” the Doctor piped up, picking up on Mal’s comment. 

“Why, dancing, of course,” Mal grinned, stepping backwards, with his arms wide as if he had nothing to hide.

“I ain’t dancing with him,” Jayne growled, gruffly, swaggering off. Mal shrugged, and turned to follow. Jack, somewhat turned on by the amount of testosterone the two gave off, watched as Jayne pinched some woman’s ass on the dance floor, while Mal strode across the room like he was headed somewhere particular. 

As Jack turned back to Kaylee, he wondered if the Doctor had already sniffed out that the two men were here on some kind of shady business. But, he thought, that wasn’t his problem. “So, Kaylee,” he said, taking in the grin she was lavishing on him, “I’m about to buy my friend the Doctor a drink. Need a refill?”

“Oh thanks! That’d be real nice.” The new smile Kaylee gave him was filled with delight. “Actually, I was hopin’ you might let me take a look at your ship later?”

Jack glanced at the Doctor, who nodded slightly. So he had permission to bring someone on board tonight--or at least permission for this particular girl. He grinned back at her. “Could do." Jack lifted an eyebrow and a hand to get the barkeep's attention. A bit of flirting was always good for getting generous service and generous drinks. "How 'bout a drink and a dance first?”

“That’d be shiny,” Kaylee’s eyes, soft and brown, glittered up at him and Jack felt her hand snaking across the bar, grasping his. 

When he next looked over to the Doctor, minutes later, his eyes were far off at the other end of the dance floor. He leaned in to Jack's ear. “I have to go. Tardis will wait for you.” 

He hesitated just a moment, enough for Jack to nod, slightly, and then he was off on a beeline for the other end of the room. Jack shut his eyes, swallowing a lump in his throat, suddenly terrified he was going to look over to find the blue box gone. But then he saw Mal and Jayne at the other side of the room, looking like to start a fight with some rough-looking fellows. 

It never failed. The Doctor was exactly where he needed to be. And so was Jack--just not at the Doctor's side, this time. For just a moment, Jack twitched, eager to follow. But the bartender had turned to him with a flirty look, and Kaylee’s eyes were bright and eager, so Jack swallowed down his lust for adventure even as his little jack stirred.


	5. Chapter 5

An hour later found them leaning into each other, rocking to the beat. Kaylee’s cheek was resting dreamily on Jack’s shoulder, and his arms rested around her waist. He could smell her, all floral and engine grease. She moved against him fluidly, her hips swinging. He could tell she was accustomed to the steady thrum of the music, droning like an engine beneath her feet. 

He couldn’t take much more waiting. Eventually, he pressed a kiss to her ear. “Let’s go.” 

She followed carefully, echoing his movements as he led her out of the crowd. Catching the Doctor’s eye from across the room, Jack raised his hand in a salute, and the Time Lord raised a glass in response. He was talking in the corner with Kaylee’s crew, Jayne and Captain Reynolds. 

Jack fumbled with the key and finally got the door open, and Kaylee put her hands to her mouth as she took in the console room, with its arching struts and bigger-on-the-inside spaciousness. “Oh, wow.” She ran a hand along the outside of the phone box, and then stepped inside. With a laugh, she ran inside and spun around, looking upwards. “My goodness, she’s beautiful!” 

“Bigger on the inside,” Jack said as he shut the door. 

“Of course she is,” Kaylee smiled. “Think I had a sense of that before, but now I really see her. She’s practically magic, ain’t she?”

“The inside’s a different dimension,” Jack explained.

“Sounds about like magic, don’t it?” Unfazed, she walked over to the console and ran her hands across the dials. She squinted up at the time rotor, and then squatted down to peer underneath. “Amazing,” she breathed. “She can fly linear, but sometimes she can jump, can’t she? She just picks a spot she wants to be, and she’s there!” 

Jack was dumbfounded by her insight. It had taken him a while of tinkering, and long lectures from the Doctor, to understand how the Tardis sometimes appeared instantly, and other times flew through the vortex. 

“You’re brilliant,” Jack admitted, coming over to take her hands and press himself against her. “And you’re beautiful.”

“Aw, thanks.” She squeezed his hands but turned from him again before he could kiss her. 

He followed her down the stairs, where the main circuitry and the heart of the Tardis were housed. She swerved around the dangling wires, completely in her element like a jungle creature among trees. When she reached the main control panels, she just stood, staring up at the wiring. 

“My ship Serenity’s just a Firefly class,” she said. “A lot of ships have whole lots of electronic parts. Serenity’s still mostly mechanical. But yours—“

Jack moved to stand behind her, resting hands lightly on her shoulders. “She’s a TARDIS.” 

“It’s like she breathes.” Kaylee reached up and ran her fingers along some of the messier wires. “She needs some work, too, don’t she?”

“We fixed her up in a hurry.” Jack traced patterns on her hip.

“That’s a shame. I could patch her up nice, if you want,” Kaylee said, a little too hopefully. She turned to look at him, but her shoulder bumped against his chest. 

Jack turned her till she was pressed against him comfortably again. “I have other plans, for now.” 

“What kind of plans, Cap’n?” 

“This.” He moved his lips against hers, tilting his head to lock their lips together. “Maybe this.” He reached out his tongue, and licked along her bottom lip.

He felt her body arch against him as her mouth opened. “Shiny plan,” she murmured, shutting her eyes and flickering her tongue up against his lips. They kissed, and Kaylee skimmed her hands over his arms and chest. 

Finally they both drew away to catch their breath. “You want to find a more comfortable place?” 

“Can’t we stay here?” She tried to duck her head, but Jack took her chin in his hand, forcing her to keep looking at him. “Engines kind of turn me on,” she explained, with cheeks the colour of strawberries. 

Jack laughed out loud. “Not a problem.” He licked a line against her ear, and moved her toward the railing where she could look up into the Tardis. “Good view?”

“Yep.”

Pushing her coat off her shoulders, Jack leaned to kiss the smooth skin of her neck. Her fingers deftly tugged his shirt buttons open. They took their time removing clothing, and kissing each new patch of skin revealed. Her mouth and hands found the curves of his muscles, the protrusions of bone, and reminded him which places were ticklish and which erotic. 

His tongue worked its way down her neck and her shoulders. All traces of her shyness were gone, now that they were alone with clothing scattered around them. He felt her ribcage rise and fall under his hands, and he stroked slowly downward and between her thighs. 

She was slick against his fingers, and he worked the wetness into her folds. She rocked her hips, tilting her head toward the ceiling with shallow breaths. 

“She’s alive, ain’t she?” she said suddenly. Her hair was messy about her face, her cheeks still flushed and sweating. “I seen her—something glowing up in there.”

“Yeah,” he said, “I think she is.” He leaned in, taking her mouth in his own, until she shut her eyes. With his free hand, Jack tugged her nipple, distracting her back into the sensation of her body’s own machinery. 

He worked his mouth down her shoulders, across her belly, and she opened to him. Wet against his tongue. Tangy. Salty. Tingling. Her hips shook against his palms, and pushed a rhythm against him. She kept quiet but her fingers clutched his hair. 

He started spelling with his tongue. “K-A-Y-L-E-E.”

Her body shook. “You spelled it right.”

He’d never met a woman who could make out the letters, or maybe he’d never tried writing messages before. “G-O-O-D.” 

Something buzzed above them. Jack felt Kaylee twist to look upwards. “Oh, hello Doctor.” 

Jack wasn’t about to ruin the moment by raising his face. 

“Um. Hello.” The Doctor sounded uncertain, yet amused.

Jack kept his tongue moving. 

“Jack says, ‘Hello.’” Kaylee explained.

“I suppose he’s going to boast about that, later.” Jack could almost hear the Doctor raise his eyebrow.

Kaylee giggled and shook as Jack kept brushing the point of his tongue against her. “Need something?” 

“Well,” the Doctor started. “There’s a small kerfluffle outside. Just a bit of a fight, really, nothing to worry about. I just came to get something. Well, never mind.”

“That’s prob’ly just Mal,” Kaylee mumbled.

Jack, drunk on Kaylee’s scent and taste, nearly giggled into her. Then he resumed his letterforms. 

“He says,” Kaylee translated, “’It can wait,’ Doctor.”

“Yes,” the Doctor answered, sounding hoarse. Jack could picture him rubbing his hand on his neck, uncomfortable yet not quite willing to pull himself away. “Of course. Well, I suppose it can.”

There were no footsteps and nothing to indicate the Doctor had any intention of leaving them alone. Jack could feel his fascination, as if it were a smell in the room. He was studying them, then. 

Giving up the alphabet, Jack started licking circles. Kaylee relaxed, pushing against him with that dizzying rock of her hips. Her voice fell away to small moans. 

“Well, I should. I’ll be—around,” the Doctor finally said, as if it was perfectly normal of him to wander around the Tardis while Jack shagged someone underneath. 

Then again, the Doctor tended to tinker on the Tardis when he didn’t know what else to do with himself. Jack felt a pang of guilt, but it fell away as Kaylee threaded fingers in his hair and pulled him deeper into her core.

Finally the footsteps retreated again, padding away. 

When they were gone, Jack raised himself up again, kissing Kaylee’s mouth. Her tongue stroked his, tasting herself in his mouth. Then she reached down, burying her face in his neck. She licked circles in the sensitive spot between his neck and shoulder, and ran her hands down his sides. 

“You taste like—I don’t know. Iron and metals, maybe.”

“Artron energy,” Jack answered.

“What’s that?”

“Time travel.” He was half-hard still, and she stroked him. Her fingers were gentle but sure, circling his base and then pumping upward, running a thumb across his head. 

“That ain’t possible, Jack.” She was watching his face, all the little twinges and responses he made to her touch. 

He didn’t bother to correct her. He thrust against her hand, his jack growing as she started to pump him in a steady rhythm.

“Like that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, Kaylee.” He mumbled against her, low enough that the Doctor couldn’t hear, even if he was nearby. “Want to fuck you. Okay, isn’t it?”

“Sure, Cap’n,” She smiled up at him from under half-lidded eyes, not seeming to mind his crass vocabulary. “Should we move, though? It ain’t quite private here, is it?”

“It’s fine.” His little jack was quivering on her thigh and he pushed closer to her.

“Nope,” the voice startled them from above. “It’s not private down there.” 

Kaylee flushed again, right to the edge of her shoulders and tips of her ears. Jack blanketed himself around her, with the urge to protect her from the Doctor’s gaze. 

“Do you mind?” Jack growled.

“ _I_ don’t mind,” the Doctor answered, sounding amused.

Kaylee started giggling silently, watching Jack, and he dared to look up. 

The Doctor was flushed, his hand on the railing, looking down on their heads. “The Tardis won’t either. In case you were wondering.” 

Jack looked up. “Did you want to join us?” 

“Stop it.” The Doctor shook his head. He reached down with something in his hand. “Did you need this?”

He placed the small plastic squares on the stair near Jack’s arm. Condoms. From Jack’s own stash, probably.

Jack ignored him. “Find another staircase to hover over?” 

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, tilted his head, then rubbed his neck. “Right.” He hesitated another moment, then retreated. 

Jack sighed in relief, as the footsteps clattered above them and disappeared down a corridor. 

Kaylee giggled against him. “Kind of an alien, ain’t he?”

“You have no idea,” Jack chuckled back. Then he changed the subject—pulling on her nipples again with his fingers, then reaching up to grab one of the plastic squares left by the Doctor.

She helped him unroll it over himself, and he grabbed a square of lube to slick himself up with. He bent down, and she helped guide him inside. Her heat encased him. 

“Kaylee.” 

“Yeah-huh?” she gasped, barely coherent, her eyes flickering to his. 

Jack felt like he was on a different planet, moving inside her—the friction against his body warped his senses. The lights seemed brighter. Her face was shadowed in blue light. Her legs wrapped around him, but her eyes were elsewhere. 

“You looking at the Tardis?”

“Her cam belt’s all complicated.”

“Yeah,” Jack chuckled, still thrusting. “It goes backwards _and_ forwards.”

He could feel her hands scrabbling at his sides and her hips rising to meet his. Even if her eyes weren’t on him, her body was fully and completely engaged. 

“How’s it do that?” 

“Sometimes it goes sideways.” He pulled back to watch his jack slide in and out of her, loving the wetness shining off himself. Her hips urged him on, faster and harder, and his stomach tightened as his body threatened to release too soon. 

“Need to slow down,” he muttered, and Kaylee was watching him again with her bright eyes. Her forehead was slick and her hair clung to her face, framing it. 

“She moves through more kinds of space than’s normal, right?”

“Yeah.” He moved back into her, slowing the rhythm. “Time and Relative Dimension in Space—TARDIS.”

“Oh, Cap’n. That’s just beautiful, but impossible.”

“Yep.” He shut her up by thrusting slow and hard into her. 

“Jack.” she moaned, gutteral against him in a way that made Jack shiver and speed up. “Harkness. Cap’n Harkness. Jack. Captain.” 

She squeezed around him, riding an orgasm and clutching his back. He watched her eyes lose focus and felt himself slip. He only had one name to go by for her. “Kaylee,” he murmured on her shoulder. 

Then he was afraid he might call out for the Doctor, so instead he just started uttering incoherent syllables.

Footsteps padded by overhead, as if the Doctor could hear Jack’s thoughts. Switches flicked on the Tardis console and the sonic buzzed. Jack didn’t want to try and decode what the Doctor was up to, this time. More important that the girl was shuddering around him.

Thick coils of heat built in his belly, promising release. His legs were cramping and he could feel Kaylee’s wetness sticking to his thighs. She was clenching again, pulling his little jack inside her deeply, and the Tardis echoed with her moaning, and he was almost there. 

All of a sudden, she giggled. Jack didn’t stop, just opened his eyes. “Whu--?”

Kaylee’s eyes were trained behind him. “Thanks,” she said. 

“Huh?” Jack stilled, watching her. 

“Blankets,” she nodded behind him. Jack tried to look over his shoulder, while still supporting her weight.

“You’ll be more comfortable,” the Doctor was behind him, evidently spreading blankets on the floor. “Down here.” He stepped into Jack’s vision, holding something in his hand. Inadvertently, he looked to where Jack and Kaylee were joined, then averted his eyes and stepped back up the stairwell. 

Kaylee was still giggling, and Jack didn’t bother answering. He just lifted her off the railing, and lowered her down on the blanket without pulling out of her. Her hair fell around her face, and she raised her face to his lips. 

His muscles relaxed in the new position, and he could almost feel the Doctor’s smug smile on his back. But he couldn’t spare the energy to respond. He just pushed himself up on his hands, watching the girl as her eyes fluttered again. 

Her floral scent mingled with the Doctor’s smell in the blanket. Jack breathed them both in, more intoxicated than ever. With gravity on her side, Kaylee pushed her hips off the floor, grinding around him. He felt her wiry hair mingle with his own, the sticky wetness covering them as his little jack thrust in and pulled out. 

Her hands lost hold of him and twisted in the blanket as she arched against him. She was coming again, and Jack let go. He rocked into her in quick, shallow thrusts. His own release was pulling at the coils of his belly and sparking out into her, like small electrical shocks arcing from the Tardis through their bodies, and out into the Vortex. He felt it in the stutter of her hips and the scratch of her fingernails on his back, and heard it in both their patterned breaths.

Even after her body stilled, he was still crying out into her shoulder. Her arms snaked back around him, petting his shoulders, and her voice murmured, urging him on. 

When Jack opened his eyes, she was watching him. He leaned down, laying a peck on her cheek, and then rolled over on his back, ripping the condom off and throwing it aside. There was no sign of the Doctor at the stairs anymore. Maybe the Time Lord was waiting just out of sight. Maybe he’d been listening.

Jack turned back to Kaylee. “Everything you needed, sweetheart?”

“That was real nice,” she said. “Better’n nice.”

“Yeah. Sorry ‘bout the Doctor.” He curled an arm around her and pulled her into a resting position on top of him. 

“You too are kinda funny for each other,” she teased. 

“Could be,” Jack mumbled into her shoulder, liking the feel of her long hair brushing against his chest. 

She splayed an arm over him. He watched the flashing of the time rotor, smelling her sex. He could feel her breath rising and falling and her eyelashes occasionally flickering. Jack let his eyes drift shut. It might be nice if they could simply fall asleep for a while.


	6. Chapter 6

Jack had only a couple moments of rest with Kaylee by his side. She moved first, rolling up on her elbow and looking down toward him. Jack smoothed her hair behind her ear, and she let her fingertips trail across his chest. “I should really be getting back. Mal’s like to get worried.”

He watched her sit up, tilting her face to watch the Tardis time rotor spin its way up to the ceiling down again. She smiled, looking blissed out. “Don’t think I’ll be forgetting this soon, though, Cap’n.” 

He sat up and kissed her shoulder, then traced a line down her arm. Can I see you again?”

“I’d like that, but we’re travelling, mostly—don’t come back round the same parts often.” She gave a little shrug, and then stood up and pulled on her clothing. Once dressed, she looked just like a mechanic, red-faced and sweaty from working on a hot engine. 

Jack pulled on his trousers, not bothering with pants or shirt, and walked her to the door. He stood outside the Tardis, arms folded, watching her slip through the crowd of dancers. 

She greeted her crew with a now-familiar duck of the head, tucking her hair behind her ear. They looked at her and looked away, squaring their shoulders. Acting gruff, they were trying to ignore how radiant she was. 

Jack grinned and withdrew into the Tardis before Kaylee looked back toward him. He sighed, leaning on the door. The room hummed, and Jack considered how large and empty it felt without the company. 

The console was set for the dematerialization sequence. Jack stared at it a moment, then strolled over and threw the lever. As they tilted into the Vortex, he hoped Kaylee was watching the box disappear. He drifted back to the delight in her eyes that he'd seen earlier.

Once the grating beneath his feet was steady again, Jack padded down the stairs to collect the blanket. He buried his face in the fabric, inhaling the residue of sex. He considered curling up there for a while to sleep in their scent, but finally just stuffed his clothes on the blanket, folded it up, and hauled it back to the bedroom. It wouldn't do to have the Doctor find him sleeping, alone, in the console room. 

The light was on. The Doctor was beneath the covers, on his stomach and reading something perched on the pillow in front of him. He twisted around as Jack entered.

“Didn’t expect to find you here.” Jack dropped the laundry, unbuttoned his trousers and shuffled them off into the pile. 

“Didn’t expect to find a scene below the heart of the Tardis.” The Doctor pulled away the covers, inviting Jack to climb into bed. 

"I only did what you asked." Jack settled in the empty spot, leaning on his elbow. The Doctor shifted, shutting his book—engraved in red spirals of Circular Gallifreyan—and set it down on the bedside table. Then he turned back around to watch Jack. 

“She likes ships," Jack added. The blanket had fallen off the Doctor’s shoulders and Jack let his eyes rest on the slight hair on his chest, and fall down around his tight, skinny stomach.

“Yes,” agreed the Doctor. “Could be, she likes ships more than she likes you.”

Jack grimaced and flopped on his back. “Could be.”

The Doctor shrugged. “Time was, there were skies full of Tardises, and Type-40s were small. Not particularly impressive. But now—well,” he shrugged, looking off at the wall. “Once someone understands what the Tardis can do.”

“Right,” Jack interrupted. The suddenly sour taste in his mouth made it impossible to say anything else.

“I asked Rose to come with me twice,” the Doctor said. “The second time I said, 'It travels in time.'” There was a wry humor in his voice. 

Jack looked at him, feeling a slow realization prickling through his skin. “You think it was the Tardis she wanted?”

“Rose? No question.” Dark, wide eyes met Jack’s, and the Doctor reached out a hand to him, letting it hover on the sheets. “But it wasn’t what she stayed for.” Jack let the Doctor’s hand stay between them, until the cool, tentative fingers brushed his shoulder. “As for your mechanic, didn’t expect her to stay, did you?”

Jack shook his head. “Let it go,” he muttered, looking back up at the ceiling. He couldn’t explain the lump in his throat. 

To his surprise, the Doctor eased closer to him, and his long fingers brushed down his arm and squeezed his hand. “Her Captain was looking for some engine parts.”

“That’s why you came down? To get some spare parts?”

“Mostly.”

The light flickered off, and Jack squeezed his eyes shut. The Doctor settled in, but Jack wasn’t ready to be close to another body but Kaylee’s. Every time she called him Captain felt like a promise, and now she was back to her Captain Reynolds. She’d gotten what she wanted, and maybe it had only been a look-see inside the Tardis machinery, like the Doctor seemed to think. Jack sighed.

The Doctor’s body was nearly against him now, his thumb tracing circles on the back of Jack’s hand. Jack shut his eyes, wanting to tune everything out. He took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. The Doctor’s hands traced a path, slow and cool, along Jack’s neck and up to his face. 

Jack wasn’t ready. He really wasn’t. He startled them both with the loudness and rawness of his own voice. “You don’t want to do that just now.”

“Jack.” The Doctor’s own growling voice wasn’t what he expected either, and Jack tried not to panic as the Doctor’s fingers practically shook his shoulder. “You haven’t got what you needed tonight quite yet.”

“What? Get off me,” Jack shifted away. He wanted that feeling of bliss back. It hadn’t lasted long. Now he just wanted to punch something. 

“Come here.” The Doctor’s strength surprised Jack as he pulled him closer. Jack stopped fighting and finally let himself be rolled onto his side, against the Doctor’s body, and his face pressed into the Doctor’s shoulder. “Just come here.”

Jack heaved a breath and snaked his arms around the Doctor’s waist. He was shocked to feel the Doctor’s bare legs and hips against his—rarely was the Doctor quite naked even in bed. But now those cool fingers were running through his hair and brushing circles around his back. 

Jack’s breathing was too fast and too ragged. Little cool kisses pressed to his temples, and warm breath grazed Jack’s ear. “I’d have taken you in whether or not you were a Time Agent. I took you back even if you’re a fixed point. And you'd have come with me, whether or not I have a time machine.”

“Right,” Jack mumbled against his shoulder.

“I’m not leaving you, Captain.” The Doctor’s voice was quiet, like silk or velvet sliding along Jack’s shoulder. “But the question is, are you going to leave me?” 

He could feel the Doctor's tension, those skinny fingers pressing in his shoulder. It was like a blade to his stomach to think the Doctor could doubt him. And it was like a salve against his aching skin, to realize the Doctor was just as confused as himself. 

He tried to pull away. “Hold on. What could make you think that I'm leaving?” 

He felt strong hands pulling him closer, lips opening his own and a cool tongue against his, and the Doctor was reaching down, along his belly, stroking his thighs. “Jack.”

“You might not want to do that,” Jack was breathless as the Doctor coaxed his little jack awake again. 

“Oh, I think I do,” the Doctor answered. “I’m not going anywhere either, you know that?”

“I do now,” Jack answered, as the Doctor’s fingers circled him.


	7. Chapter 7

All heat and bones, the two bodies rested piled around each other. Before Jack was properly awake he felt a knee pressing in his calf and fingers between his thighs. His hand rested on an arm, and he wondered whom he could possibly have fallen asleep beside.

The memory of Kaylee’s soft curves flooded back, and her all-feminine tangy taste. But the body against him was masculine, all angles, wiry hair and muscle. 

The discrepancy confused him but his tongue found skin before his eyes opened. Here was a flavor that could only be found in one place. All his memories were triggered, and he was awake, holding the Doctor. His lips were against the Doctor’s chest, and he was afraid to extricate himself and afraid to continue. 

The Doctor was shifting, yawning, pressing closer. “Fell asleep, did we?”

“Hmm.”

The Doctor rolled over on his back, leaving Jack’s face cold again and light streaming in his eyes. “Morning.” 

“Suppose.” Through hooded lids, Jack watched him. 

“We could visit the Perspecta cluster today,” the Doctor suggested, his eyes dreamy. “There’s going to be a great temporal symphony. Took years and years to play.” 

“Symphony?” Jack repeated. It wasn’t exactly what he had on his mind just now. 

“There’s a series of asteroids, spaced nearly exactly one light-year apart from one another.” The Doctor slipped comfortably into lecture mode, already awake and looking toward the next adventure. “Once a year, a musician visits the next asteroid, playing the next part of the music.”

“Once a year?” 

“If we stand on the last asteroid, in the right moment, we’ll hear the whole thing as if it was played at once! It’s going to be brilliant!” The Doctor sounded so proud of himself. 

“Hmm,” Jack smiled into the pillow, still blinking awake. He’d heard of that symphony before, and while it was a great idea, it was also infamously terrible music. The Time Agency used recordings to teach new agents why it was a bad idea to get clever with the timelines. 

“Time travel’s not just for revolutions, and righting the wrongs of the past, and visiting exotic space bars.” The Doctor’s face tilted over, one eyebrow raised.

“You’re right. Sometimes there’s weevils or sexy tech or even orchestra tricks.”

The Doctor pushed himself up on an elbow. “Where do you want to go then?” 

Jack hadn’t thought that far and didn’t really want to plan the day yet. One thing at a time. “Bathroom.” 

He pulled himself upright and stretched, but before he could climb out of bed the Doctor’s long hands were grasping his knee and his body leaned in toward Jack’s. “Stay.” 

Jack gaped down at the angular face beside him. The Doctor’s hair stood out crazier than usual around his face, and his cheeks were dark with stubble. Jack leaned in toward him, surprised, and the Doctor tilted his face up. With a hand on Jack’s shoulder, the Doctor met his lips. 

Jack pulled away feeling dazed a moment later. The Doctor said, “You don’t have to hide in there on my account.”

“Bladder calls,“ Jack shrugged. “You’ll still be here?”

“I will.”

He felt the Doctor watch him go, and once he was shut in the bathroom, he relieved himself, then turned to his own reflection, looking back over the dirty countertop. His habit was this: the mirror, his hand, his little jack. He wanted that release and there was no promise if he went back out to the bedroom he’d get it, but his body shivered in anticipation. 

Sliding his hand down his jack, cupping his own balls, he licked his lips and found them still raw from kissing the Doctor’s stubbled jaw. He grinned at himself in the mirror and then stepped out of the bathroom.

The Doctor was lounging on the bed, naked and cross-legged, with his arm slouched over Jack’s pillows. As Jack settled back down on the mattress, the Doctor reached a hand over to Jack’s knee and twisted to look at him. 

“Can I watch?” His eyes dropped down, studying Jack’s body and he felt his little jack tilt upward again. 

Jack snaked out his hand and grasped the Doctor’s, his throat suddenly dry. “I never meant to make you uncomfortable last night.”

“It’s been quite a long time, Captain.” 

Jack smiled toward the far wall, clasping the Doctor’s fingers without meeting his eyes. “You miss it?”

“No,” the Doctor answered. “No no no. I did used to miss this though. Being near to someone. Sharing a life. Sharing this crazy life, out here in the stars.” 

Jack leaned in toward him. “I love this life. With you.” 

Reassured by the Doctor’s calmness and their hands still clasped, Jack met his eyes finally and found the Doctor looking back at him. He no longer looked uncomfortable or afraid, and Jack leaned forward and kissed him again softly, chastely. There was no heat or passion, but the Doctor did respond, and then pulled away, unwilling to linger. 

Jack curled his thumb to rub the back of the Doctor’s hand and reached to touch himself again. The Doctor didn’t move, just watched him back without expression. 

Lightly he stroked his jack, then pulled at the foreskin, pushing it over the head, and feeling the friction start to bring wetness to the surface. Jack sighed, moving his hips, pushing into his hand and tightening his grip on himself with the one hand, and the Doctor’s palm underneath his other hand. 

He felt the Doctor’s breath speed up with his and they leaned back against the headboard together. Jack watched the Doctor watch him, as he slowly pumped his jack, up and down, up and down. He didn’t want to rush, so he took his time, slowly speeding until he felt himself tighten. He was almost there. 

There were things he was tempted to say, like 'I’ve waited so long for you, or Love you, or Will you just, please, a little, touch me?' but it didn’t seem right, somehow. The Doctor wasn’t running, but he wasn’t participating either. He was just…watching. It was somehow unnerving and yet incredibly hot at the same time. Jack liked being on display—liked it a little too much, sometimes.

He could feel the endorphins in his spine, small shivers creeping up his neck. But he didn’t want to release yet. He wanted it to last. He didn’t want to just make a mess of himself while the Doctor just sat there watching impassively. Jack groaned, lifting his hand and looking up at the ceiling till his breath calmed a moment.

The Doctor was smiling at him, just barely, and there was enough welcome in his face that Jack moved instinctively, pulling forward and twisting and straddling the Doctor’s legs with his knees on the mattress. He pushed the Doctor’s shoulders back against the headboard of the bed. 

The Doctor tensed, shocked. “Let me go.”

“I want you,” Jack said, ducking his face as if it was an embarrassing secret. Little jack wobbled between them. Jack leaned in against the Doctor’s ear, not daring to look at him. He shut his eyes against the intensity of desire gnawing through him. “While you’re watching I don’t know how to just—“

But he didn’t have to finish that sentence. Like a word of reassurance, the Doctor’s hands were moving across his skin, easing up along his thighs. One hand stroked his hip. The other palm came forward and grasped little jack, resuming the rhythm Jack had started earlier. He pumped. Jack shivered. 

“All right?” the Doctor said, his lips on Jack’s face.

“Slow down,” Jack hissed.

The rhythm slowed. The Doctor’s fingers were lithe and precise, curling up over the head of little jack and then stroking down, swirling around his balls and pulling back up to the head again. The sensation was intense and all-encompassing, echoing all of Jack’s earlier movements in one smooth, fluid stroke. The Doctor had studied well. Jack shivered, thrusting his hips uselessly between them and growling obscenities. “Fuck Holy Hell Doctor Yes.”

And then the Doctor was pumping little jack for all he was worth, and Jack had bit down on the shoulder underneath him and was crying out into it. It was too soon, but he was coming on both of them in sharp bursts. Hot juice was on the Doctor’s chest and Jack’s stomach, and the Doctor was stroking it around little jack. 

Jack sat back down heavily on top of the Doctor’s legs, staring at him, panting. The Doctor still looked calm and collected, his hair as mussed as ever. Jack felt limp, bone-tired, and not sure whether he was about to laugh or cry. So he just leaned forward, forehead to forehead with the Doctor. “Thank you.”

There was something like laughter in his head, and relief, and wonder as they connected, telepathically, enough to share emotion. There was a sensation like kissing and the flavor of sex, but it was the Doctor’s fingers at Jack’s lips instead of his mouth. Jack licked his semen from the Doctor’s fingers while the Doctor watched him with dark eyes. 

Jack could sense the Doctor reacting to his tongue. He loved the wetness swirling on the pads of his fingertips. It only took the touch of their foreheads to share their sensory impressions. Jack took two fingers in his mouth and sucked them, running his tongue around each one. When he released them, the Doctor moved his hand to cup Jack’s face, pulling him closer into a kiss. 

It was still familiar, and intimate, but the indifference had faded. Pure joy coursed through them, and something akin to passion. Then the Doctor’s body shifted, and Jack was slipping off his legs and searching for a spare undershirt to wipe them both clean. 

Maybe they didn’t want the same things, and maybe the Doctor could never quite share Jack’s pleasure. Maybe one day Jack would need more, and go in search of Kaylee or another quick fling in a servant’s closet or alleyway. But for now, he thought, he was one step closer to what he needed.

They didn’t speak again until the hot water hit them, and the Doctor was soaping Jack’s chest. 

“I’ve heard that symphony,” Jack told him. “It’s rubbish, you know. Out of tune, and someone gummed up the works with a stray pennywhistle.”

The Doctor nudged Jack to turn around and starting running the loofah across his back. “It would hardly be worth visiting, if there wasn’t something to fix now, would it?” 

“I’m in,” Jack answered. “I should have known.”

“First,” the Doctor sighed, setting the soap on the ledge. “We really ought to fix the Tardis.”

“Right,” Jack reached up his arms and let water course around him, then turned back around. “Think you got the right tool for the job this time? Sure you don’t want another soldering gun?”

The Doctor thrummed his fingers against Jack’s chest, and water swirled around them. “It’s the technique that matters, not the tools.”

“I stand corrected.” Jack grinned. “Maybe you can teach me a thing or two with these amazing fingers.” 

He took the Doctor’s hand in his own, and splayed the fingers out, pulling them up to his mouth. As he twirled his tongue around them, the Doctor let his eyelids droop and let out a long, low moan. 

Then he jerked his hands away, “Stop it, Captain!” He was out of the shower in a red-hot minute, towelling his pale bum dry. 

Jack turned off the water and followed him out. There was still work to be done between them, but damn if he wasn’t going to enjoy it.


End file.
